Is the Firefox 10 silent update feature a good thing?

Mozilla is planning to implement silent background updates in the upcoming version of Firefox 10, which could be very bad news on the security front, according to Philip Lieberman, CEO of Lieberman Software.

While many IT security systems will have to be reconfigured to allow background updates to Firefox – which is not a good thing in the first place – there is danger that hackers could subvert the update system to allow them backdoor access to the users’ computer.

“Auto-updating can be a welcome feature for many computer users, but the feature does need to let the user know what is happening. Having your software quietly update in the background - presumably on a modular code basis - is not something that all IT security professionals will welcome,” he said. “If, as I think appears quite likely, hackers start reverse engineering the Firefox background updating system – and remember we are talking about open source software here – then it is only a matter of time before they subvert this auto-updating mechanism to inject malware,” he added.